O shame to men! Devil with Devil damn'd
Firm concord holds, men only disagree
Of creatures rational, though under hope
Of heav'nly grace: and God proclaiming peace,
Yet live in hatred, enmity, and strife
Among themselves, and levy cruel wars,
Wasting the earth, each other to destroy;
As if (which might induce us to accord)
Man had not hellish foes enough besides,
That day and night for his destruction wait.

500

505

The Stygian council thus dissolved; and forth

In order came the grand infernal peers:

'Midst came their mighty Paramount, and seem'd Alone th' antagonist of Heav'n, nor less

Than Hell's dread emperor with pomp supreme, 510 And God-like imitated state; him round

A globe of fiery Seraphim inclosed

515

With bright emblazonry, and horrent arms.
Then of their session ended they bid cry
With trumpets regal sound the great result:
Tow'rds the four winds four speedy Cherubim
Put to their mouths the sounding alchemy
By heralds' voice explain'd; the hollow abyss
Heard far and wide, and all the host of Hell
With deaf'ning shout return'd them loud acclaim. 520
Thence more at ease their minds, and somewhat raised
By false presumptuous hope, the ranged Pow'rs
Disband, and wand'ring, each his sev'ral way
Pursues, as inclination or sad choice

Leads him perplex'd, where he may likeliest find 525
Truce to his restless thoughts, and entertain
The irksome hours till his great chief return.
Part on the plain, or in the air sublime,

496. It has been well observed, that an allusion is probably made here to the troubled character of the times in which the author lived.

512. A globe, or a battalion surrounding him in a circle.-See Virgil, A. x. 373.

513. Horrent, rou.h and sharp. This epithet I imagine to have considerable force, because it implies the dense and com pact closeness of the globe of spirits surrounding Satan. The arnis were horrent, because standing out like a boar's bristle from this fiery body.

517. Alchemy, a very fine metonymy for the trumpets.

528. The occupations of the fallen spirits are conceived in the ighest strain both of poetry and philosophy.

530

535

Upon the wing, or in swift race contend,
As at th' Olympian games or Pythian fields;
Part curb their fiery steeds, or shun the goal
With rapid wheels, or fronted brigades form.
As when to warn proud cities war appears
Waged in the troubled sky, and armies rush
To battle in the clouds, before each van
Prick forth the airy knights, and couch their spears
Till thickest legions close; with feats of arms
From either end of Heav'n the welkin burns.
Others, with vast Typhoan rage more fell,
Rend up both rocks and hills, and ride the air
In whirlwind; Hell scarce holds the wild uproar.
As when Alcides, from Oechalia crown'd
With conquest, felt th' envenom'd robe, and tore
Througn pain up by the roots Thessalian pines,
And Lichas from the top of Oeta threw
Into th' Euboic sea. Others more mild,
Retreated in a silent valley, sing

540

545

(What could it less when Spirits immortal sing?) Suspended Hell, and took with ravishment

The thronging audience. In discourse more sweet 555 (For eloquence the soul, song charms the sense) Others apart sat on a hill retired,

In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high
Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,
Fix'd fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute,
And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost.
Of good and evil much they argued then,
Of happiness and final misery,

560

539. Typhoan-Typhoeus was one of the giants who warred against heaven.

542. Alcides-Hercules, so named from his ancestor Alcæus The allusion here made is familiar to every reader.

555. It has been observed, that Milton has here shewn the superiority of discourse and reasoning to song. The angels who rason are on hill; those who sing are in a valley.-But it should have been observed, at the same time, that it is only when song is what Milton calls partial, or confined to selfish or am bitious themes, that it is thus inferior to, or different from: philosophy.

gh

Passion and apathy, glory and shame,
Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy:
Yet with a pleasing sorcery could charm
Pain for a while, or anguish, and excite
Fallacious hope, or arm th' obdured breast
With stubborn patience as with triple steel.
Another part in squadrons and gross bands,
On bold adventure to discover wide
That dismal world, if any clime perhaps
Might yield them easier habitation, bend

565

570

Four ways their flying march, along the banks
Of four infernal rivers, that disgorge

575

Into the burning lake their baleful streams;

Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate;
Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep;

Cocytus, named of lamentation loud

Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegethon, 580 Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage.

Far off from these a slow and silent stream,

Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls

585

590

Her wat'ry labyrinth; whereof who drinks,
Forth with his former state and being forgets,
Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain.
Beyond this flood a frozen continent
Lies dark and wild, beat with perpetual storms
Of whirlwind and dire hail, which on firm land
Thaws not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems
Of ancient pile; all else deep snow and ice
A gulf profound as that Serbonian bog
Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old,
Where armies whole have sunk: the parching air
Burns frore, and cold performs th' effect of fire. 595
Thither, by harpy-footed furies haled,

577. Milton follows the Greeks in this description of the infernal rivers; but, as usual, improves upon the classical idea, as he represents them as emptying themselves into a vast and fearful lake of fire. Styx, according to its derivation, signifies hate; Acheron, flowing with pain; Cocytus, lamentation; Phlegethon, burning, and Lethe, forgetfulness.

592. Serbonis was a lake two hundred furlongs long, and one thousand round, between Mount Casius and Damiata, a city in Egypt. It was sometimes so covered by the loose sand of the reighbouring hills, as not to be distinguished from the land.See Herod. I. 3. and Lucan. viii. 539.

595. Frore, frosty.-See Virgil, Georg. i. 93.

21. Ps. cxxi. 6.

Ecclus. xlii. 20,

At certain revolutions, all the damn'd

Are brought; and feel by turns the bitter change

Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce, From beds of raging fire to starve in ice

600

Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine
Immoveable, infix'd, and frozen round,

Periods of time, thence hurried back to fire.

They ferry over this Lethean sound

Both to and fro, their sorrow to augment,

605

And wish and struggle, as they pass, to reach

The tempting stream, with one small drop to lose
In sweet forgetfulness all pain and woe,

All in one moment, and so near the brink;

But Fate withstands, and to oppose th' attempt 610 Medusa with Gorgonian terror guards

The ford, and of itself the water flies

All taste of living wight, as once it fied

The lip of Tantalus. Thus roving on

In confused march forlorn, th' advent'rous bands 615 With shudd'ring horror pale, and eyes aghast,

View'd first their lamentable lot, and found

No rest. Through many a dark and dreary vale
They pass'd, and many a region dolorous,

O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp,

620

Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of

death,

A universe of death, which God by curse
Created evil, for evil only good,

Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds,

Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,

Abominable, inutterable, and worse

Than fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceived,
Gorgons and Hydras, and Chimaras dire.

625

Meanwhile the adversary' of God and Man, Satan, with thoughts infiamed of high'st design, Puts on swift wings, and tow'rds the gates of Hell Explores his solitary flight. Sometimes

636

He scours the right hand coast, sometimes the left, Now shaves with level wing the deep, then soars Up to the fiery concave tow'ring high.

635

603. See Job xxiv. in the Vulgate translation.-See also Shakspeare Measure for Measure, Act iii.

611. Medusa, one of the Gorgon monsters.

Far off the flying Fiend: at last appear

Hell bounds, high reaching to the horrid roof,

And thrice threefold the gates; three folds were brass, Three iron, three of adamantine rock,

646

Impenetrable, impaled with circling fire,

Yet unconsumed. Before the gates there sat
On either side a formidable shape;

The one seem'd woman to the waist, and fair,

650

But ended foul in many a scaly fold
Voluminous and vast, a serpent arm'd
With mortal sting: about her middle round
A cry of Hell-hounds never ceasing, bark'd

With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung 655
A hideous peal: yet, when they list, would creep,

660

If aught disturb'd their noise, into her womb,
And kennel there, yet there still bark'd and howl'd,
Within unseen. Far less abhorr'd than these
Vex'd Scylla, bathing in the sea that parts
Calabria from the hoarse Trinacrian shore;
Nor uglier follow the night-hag, when call'd
In secret, riding through the air she comes,
Lured with the smell of infant blood, to dance

636. A noble comparison. But Dr. Bentley asks why would not one ship do as well as a fleet? It has been answered, that many ships are a more noble figure than one. This, however, is only the case when so seen at a distance, that they may appear as one grand, dark, and sublime object. Ternate and Tidore are two of the Molucca Islands.

648. This is one of the most sublime passages in, the poem. Addison is generally ingenious in his criticisms, but not elevated, and when he objected to Milton's having introduced an allegory he shews that he was incapable of entering into the magnificent -onceptions of his author. Sin and Death are not allegorical beings in Paradise Lost; but real and active existences. They would have been allegorical, speaking or contending among men, but are not so in an abode of spirits, and addressing the Prince of darkness, see James i. 15.

661. Calabria, the extreme part of Italy towards the Mediter rauean. Trinacria, an ancient name of Sicily.